Social interactions like +1s on GooglePlus, Facebook shares, comments, and likes, etc. are called social signals.
Google has been tracking social signals as part of its ranking algorithm since late 2010.
Note: Google encourages website owners to build their social presence as a long-term investment to drive qualified traffic, rather than aiming for short-term benefits like search ranking placement. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team has stated that Google takes a cautious approach when it comes to social signals, as so many things change quickly on social media. Without a reliable ‘map,’ Google is understandably reticent to assign more importance to the social sphere over other aspects of their search algorithm. In summary, Google’s strategy is to “wait and see” how things develop over time, as sites that provide real value tend to develop longevity, trust and authority, and these are the websites that Google wants to display higher in its search results.
Social Signal Sources
Social media sites that search engines like Google and Bing look to when measuring social signals include:
With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is the largest social media network on the planet. Research shows that one great post on Facebook can reach up to 150,000 users, so even if no one is buying your products or services on Facebook, you should not be quick to dismiss the power of leveraging Facebook, as Google processes data and information from Facebook to help determine your search rankings. In fact, research indicates that Facebook seems influence search engine rankings more than other social media sites.
(Number of monthly active Facebook users. Source: Statista.com)
After Facebook, Twitter is the second largest social media site in the world, with over half a billion tweets sent out every day. Twitter has a significant amount of influence on the cybersphere and places great importance on the authority of tweets posted to followers over the number of tweets sent …
(Over half a billion tweets are sent each day. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
Google Plus
As Google’s own social media site, GooglePlus naturally carries great authority online, even if it has not reached the same level of growth and take up as Twitter and Facebook.
(More people are actively using Google+ every week. Source: InternetLiveStats.com)
In addition to the big 3 listed above, there are a number of other social sites that should not be ignored, like Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit.
(A number of social media sites provide important signals to search engines that could affect your rankings)
Which Social Signals Should You Be Paying Attention To?
Social signals tracked by search engines like Google and Bing include:
- Facebook – e.g. how many Facebook likes, comments, and shares a person has, growth rate of shares and likes, etc.
- Twitter – e.g. tweets and retweets, how influential the person retweeting your posts is, trending topics, etc.
- GooglePlus – e.g. who is following you (high profile users), how many followers on Google+ a web page has amassed, number and authority of +1s, etc.
- Other sites – e.g. number of Pins and re-Pins on Pinterest, comments on StumbleUpon, etc.
- Not so obvious signals – In addition to the above, there are other not so obvious social media-related factors that can indirectly influence search traffic. These include positive and negative factors, such as age and authority of your social media account [positive], and whether your site is deemed to be of low quality by site reviewers [negative].
As a website owner, it’s not only important to grow your presence on major social networking websites, but also to be able to track, measure and analyze social media in order to improve your business results.
(Use social media marketing to help improve your results online)
Monitoring social media activity allows you to find insights into what people are saying about your brand, services, or company on social media, help you take preventative measures if you detect negative comments or feedback by online users, measure the impact of your marketing campaigns, assess competitor activity and market dominance, and identify market opportunities. Additionally, monitoring social media can also provide valuable data about emerging trends and what consumers and clients are thinking about specific topics, brands, products, or businesses.
As a business intelligence tool, social signal monitoring is invaluable. Using social media monitoring as a form of business intelligence, however, is a complex undertaking, typically carried out by a cross-section of people including PR companies, market researchers, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, sales teams, and agencies. Typically, many small businesses do not have the budget to pay a social media monitoring service to track their coverage in the and actively monitor their online reputation.
Fortunately a number of technology providers have developed tools and solutions to facilitate the active tracking of a variety of social media channels, allowing you to track consumer behavior around your brand or products allowing you to respond proactively to conversations and interact with consumers in a timely fashion.
To learn more about social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about, refer to this article:
(Can you measure social signals effectively?)
In this article, we explore a simple social media tracking plugin for WordPress and growing your social media influence.
Our Featured WordPress Product …
Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Social Metrics Pro is an easy-to-use social media analytics WordPress plugin that is designed to help you grow your social media influence in an uncomplicated way. It is built on a simple premise – the plugin measures and tracks how each signal is performing and returns either a green or red indicator. The site owner’s objective is simple … change reds into greens.
(SocialMetricsPro provides a standard operating procedure that any user can follow … turn reds into greens!)
Colors indicate relative popularity. Posts that get shared the most display green. Posts with low social media activity show up amber and red.
The developers of Social Metrics Pro tested their plugin on a network of 2,000+ websites over a period of 3 months. During this period, all they focused on was turning the “reds” to “greens” and then keeping everything “green”. From these tests, they were able to notice a 360% improvement in traffic for their top 10 performing sites, 410% more keywords ranked in the first page of Google and they also experienced a 310% increase in revenues.
(According to Social Metrics Pro developers, improving your social media marketing campaigns can dramatically can have a dramatic effect on your search engine rankings, traffic and revenue!)
Learn more here:
Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Social Metrics Pro to track Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more from your WordPress Dashboard on your website:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
SocialMetricsPro installs like any WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user login and activate.
Really Simple To Use
As mentioned earlier, the site owner’s objective is to convert more red squares into greens. The plugin tracks and measures social signals the way Google sees it so you know where to invest more effort and which social marketing campaigns need to be better optimized.
Choose Only Social Signals You Care About
SocialMetricsPro provides a powerful dashboard to centrally track and monitor social activity across leading social media networks like Facebook, GooglePlus, Twitter, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn directly from your WordPress admin area.
Social Metrics Pro lets you easily answer questions like:
- Which social networks work best for my site?
- Which social campaigns are performing the best on these social networks?
- Which of my posts are the most popular on social media?
- And more …
With SocialMetricsPro, all this information can be accessed with a single click.
(SocialMetricsPro actively tracks the sites that you care most about!)
SocialMetricsPro Features
SocialMetricsPro provides WP users with a number of great features. Here are just a few of these:
- Fast and easy to install and configure. Ready to start using in very little time.
- Widgets & Extensions Ready. You can extend its functionality using external and built-in widgets. Access the latest information from your WP admin bar, add popular content to your sidebar or anywhere in your site using widgets.
- One-click updates. You can update Social Metrics Pro in a single click via the WordPress Updates screen, or update the manually manually. You can also opt to be notified via email whenever a new version is released.
- Low server resource consumption. Reporting is in seconds, using little hosting resources. Reports also include the amount of time used to retrieve information and the server memory consumed when gathering data.
Additional features include:
- Sort, Search And Filter Features: SocialMetricsPro allows you to sort and filter the information however you like. You can perform keyword searches to study topic-related posts, and even filter the results by category, publishing date, post type, or by post authors.
- Export Data To Excel: You can export filtered data and custom queries to Excel for further analysis. Data can be exported in tab-delimited and comma-separated file formats, and imported to Excel or the spreadsheet application of your choice.
(SocialMetricsPro is very simple to use … just turn all red squares into greens!)
Feedback From Users
Here are just some testimonials and comments that customers have published about the SocialMetricsPro plugin:
”Social Metrics is the easiest way to see at a glance which posts have performed well on social networks.” Kevin Muldoon, Founder of WPMods.com
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”If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve.” Goes one of the most important sayings in business. And this is particularly true for tracking of your social mentions I found. There were two things that helped me a great deal to increase sharing after installing Social Metrics: First, I was able to see that some of my articles would perform much better on networks I wasn’t particularly using, such as StumbleUpon for example. Secondly, I could filter out the best performing content more easily and analyse what makes my readers share. Since then I have focused strongly on producing and replicating those posts that performed best.” Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer
SocialMetricsPro – Useful Tips
SocialMetricsPro comes with a step-by-step, practical guide containing useful advice on how to optimize your social media strategy (i.e. how to turn reds into greens).
Plugin Support
SocialMetricsPro is well-supported, and comes with free support and free lifetime updates, backed by a risk-free, sixty-day, full money-back guarantee.
Product Pricing
Social Metrics Pro plugin is available in two editions:
- Single Site Licensing – This allows you to set up Social Metrics Pro on a single site. Cost includes free lifetime updates and free support. Cost = $27.00 (one-time).
- Multi-Site License – This edition enables you to install SocialMetricsPro on all the sites that you own. Pricing includes free lifetime upgrades and support. Price = $47.00 (one-time).
Note: The cost of purchasing this product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. Currently, the plugin sells for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
SocialMetricsPro requires a self-hosted installation of WordPress and can be instantly downloaded after purchase.
Get The Product
As mentioned earlier, with the increased importance of social sites like Twitter and Facebook, search engines like Bing and Google are now taking into account various social signals to help determine a site’s ranking.
No website owner can afford to ignore how important social media is to their online success. SocialMetricsPro solves the problem of how to find a simple, time-saving solution that gives you instant feedback on the success of your social marketing strategy and shows you where to improve your results.
Social Metrics Pro is ideal for beginners and advanced WordPress users alike. It tracks Tweets, Likes, Pins, +1s and more right from your WordPress dashboard.
We recommend SocialMetricsPro if you own or manage WordPress sites and want to monitor which social media networks are working for your business.
For full details, visit the plugin website here: Social Metrics Pro – Social Media Analytics For WordPress
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